On Demand Blogging by Stephen Pech

Yesterday Salesforce.com’s SaaS platform play, Force.com, announced it was going to support applications made with Adobe’s FLEX and AIR technologies on their platform.

This is a very good move by Salesforce.  It means they are allowing AIR/FLEX to be the presentation layer and also taking advantage of the offline functionality that AIR/FLEX will bring.  It means that they are leveraging the impact and drive that Adobe has brought to the web already with flash, shockwave et al., along with the extra it will be bringing to the web application space with AIR and FLEX.  It also means that strategically they are really opening themselves up to other technologies other than their own processes and user interface components which, although useful were never going to be able to keep up with the pace of change in the wider SaaS / web application community.This hook-up also means that the offline functionality that AIR and FLEX are developing immediately steps salesforce.com into the forefront of the drive to take SaaS apps offline.  The ability for applications to work effectively in both a connected and an unconnected mode is essential to effectively supporting business processes and our increasingly mobile work habits.

It will also allow the applications developed to be listed on their AppExchange, which on top of the technology based criteria for choosing the force.com platform, also provides a marketing and sales incentive by providing a built in route to the customer and marketing avenue. 

Force.com’s saleforce.com based customer interface layer was always going to be the Achilles heel of their platform.  It works well for sales management and database driven applications but not well enough for the wider array of web applications.  Adding AIR and FLEX is like selling a car with the option to snap the body off of the chassis and exchange it for one with a different look, feel and interior.

This really gives Force.com the opportunity to become the defacto standard web platform that Salesforce.com wants it to be.

Interestingly today also brought a big AIR/FLEX update in my neck of the woods, the Asia Pacific.  Australia’s biggest bank, the CBA, has chosen AIR/FLEX for the customer facing component of it’s home loans (Mortgage) processing system.  This will mean that the same user interface is available when offline or online and that mortgage data captured offline will be synchronised when the computer is next online.  A great example of what this technology can be used for.